The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the federal ban on medical marijuana should make a lot of Republicans nostalgic for Barry Goldwater, the late Arizona Senator known for his outspoken libertarian conservatism.
Goldwater, despite his landslide loss to Lyndon Johnson in the presidential race of 1964, launched the modern conservative movement into ascendancy. His philosophy of limited government and individual freedom at home, combined with active opposition to tyranny abroad, is perhaps best encapsulated in his well-known line, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
President George W. Bush's brand of conservatism only occasionally resembles Goldwater's. Bush's virtuous immoderation in pursuing justice and democracy in the Middle East is Goldwater-like. Social Security reforms to allow personal accounts? Goldwater-like. But a $700 billion prescription drug benefit? Not Goldwater-like. Federal prosecution of adult-video makers? Not Goldwater-like. Federal intrusion into the Schiavo family tragedy? Not Goldwater-like.
The Supreme Court's 6–3 decision in Gonzales v. Raich once again exposed the Goldwater-driven fault-lines within the Republican coalition. The decision affirmed the Bush administration's unGoldwater-like desire to prohibit medical marijuana while dismissing the Goldwater-like desire of states such as California and Washington to permit limited use of the drug.
Some conservatives are dismayed that Bush's so-called "compassionate conservatism" means pandering to a vocal minority of anti-drug purists instead of extending compassionate cannabis pain relief to the terminally ill. Other conservatives aren't necessarily sold on medical marijuana but are nevertheless appalled by Bush's dismissal of the right of states to craft their own drug policies. Among this group are some of the high court's most conservative members—Rehnquist, O'Connor, and Thomas—who were dissenters in Raich, rejecting the argument that Congress' constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce extends to homegrown marijuana used under a doctor's supervision. Columnists for the National Review and the Washington Times were equally dismayed over the withering away of so classically conservative a principle as federalism.
Bush and his advisors seem to have concluded that a platform of expanding the government is more likely to win elections than a program of shrinking the government. Certainly the massive pork-barrel spending and the attempts to regulate various private behaviors would suggest as much. But many other Republicans believe that the incoherence of occasionally compassionate occasional conservatism will quickly run its political as well as its philosophical course. Expect a fight for the soul of the Republican Party in 2008 between the heirs of Goldwater (e.g., Giuliani and Schwarzenegger) and the big-government conservatives like DeLay and Ashcroft.
Thanks to the Supreme Court's medical marijuana ruling, the battle is already heating up locally. For example, State Rep. Toby Nixon (R-Kirkland) answered the Supreme Court's reefer madness with a resolution for the state legislature, when it reconvenes, to consider calling on Congress to "allow the states to be the test-beds for policies, for compassion, and for the right of people within individual states to decide this issue for themselves." ■
Stefan Sharkansky founded the local conservative politics blog www.soundpolitics.com.
